Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) vs RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle comparison

The compared Cisco and RSA solutions aren't in the same category. Cisco is ranked #1 in NAC , with an average rating of 8.1, and holds a 22.8% mindshare in the category. RSA is ranked #20 in IAM , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 1.3% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 60% of RSA users who would recommend it.

Cisco Identity Services Eng...

Read 145 Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) reviews

15,318 Views
9,957 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

RSA Identity Governance and...

Read 10 RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle reviews

861 Views
680 Comparison Views

60% willing to recommend

Cisco Identity Services Eng...

RSA Identity Governance and...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Fortinet and others in Network Access Control (NAC).

To learn more, read our detailed Network Access Control (NAC) Report (Updated: December 2025).

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Network Access Control (NAC)

December 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Identity Services Eng...

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

145

Ranking in other categories

Network Access Control (NAC) (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)

RSA Identity Governance and...

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Identity Management (IM) (20th)

Mindshare comparison

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is designed for Network Access Control (NAC) and holds a mindshare of 22.8%, down 28.7% compared to last year.
RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle, on the other hand, focuses on Identity Management (IM), holds 1.3% mindshare, down 1.4% since last year.

Network Access Control (NAC) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)	22.8%
Aruba ClearPass	22.2%
Fortinet FortiNAC	16.5%
Other	38.5%

Network Access Control (NAC)

Identity Management (IM) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle	1.3%
SailPoint Identity Security Cloud	16.0%
Microsoft Entra ID	10.2%
Other	72.5%

Identity Management (IM)

Featured Reviews

NicolasFigaro

Network and Technology Information Manager at Akkodis

Has improved authentication management and simplified visitor network access

The log capacity in Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) could be enhanced because today natively on the ISE can only have a look at the logs from the day before. You cannot search into the oldest logs; you have to use another tool for that. This can be blocking if you don't have any log consolidation solution. To do a search for an issue or something that happened two days ago, you cannot search directly in there. The capacity of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) could be enhanced. Something between one week and one month for the log capacity would be nice.

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Harshul Nayak

Senior Project Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

Streamline identity lifecycle management with intuitive interfaces and robust policy features

The functions of RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle, especially the IGA, are quite strong with their custom forms and workflows integrated. The user interface is very friendly and easy to use, making it a good product overall. However, it still has to be on-premise and the cloud version is not easily accessible, as dedicated instances are required and machines cannot be shared as multi-tenant for various customers. The advanced policy features of RSA definitely help in defining certain policies such as segregation of duties. That's particularly useful along with creating different access reviews. Regarding access control in simplifying access management, RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle has strong foundations of groups and roles, which help in defining all policies very easily. This makes it very easy to integrate with other access management tools or privileged access management tools.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The profiling model included is the most valuable feature."

"When we use ISE, one of the helpful things is that I can go through the dashboard and get every step along the way of how a device was authenticated. If it's failing, why did it fail? Why is it unauthorized? If there's an error, what is the error and how can I fix that error? If it's something that, if they should be passing, why are they failing?"

"They provide you multiple ways to achieve security, not only on-prem, but also when you have remote and guest workers. Especially post-pandemic, a lot of our customers have remote workers. So, it has been really helpful."

"I love the policy sets, they are really nice and dynamic."

"It's flexible and stable. It's been good as a standard environment to run."

"The WiFi portal in Cisco ISE is very useful for WiFi customers."

"Authentication is the most valuable feature because it puts our company at another level of security."

"Cisco ISE integrates with everything else."

More Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) pros

"With the tool in place, you need to hire fewer people to provide access, and you have control over your processes."

"The data collection is excellent and easy to do. It does not require a lot of configuration nor does it require rules to be written like other competitors do."

"The most valuable feature is the security, in particular, the One Time Password support."

"RSA Identity Governance and lifecycles are good for the access certification and auditing sections."

"The user interface is very friendly and easy to use, making it a good product overall."

"Roles, connectors for provisioning and re-accreditation or reviews help greatly to govern user access."

Cons

"There should be an easier way to do the upgrades. There are a lot of steps to get to the next version from the previous version which ends up being a bit of the headache with the upgrade."

"The price could be better. I would like to see more integration with third-party solutions in the next release. This is because many of my clients don't have Cisco."

"Sometimes some of Cisco ISE's graphical interfaces could be a little bit smoother. However, with the different versions, the product is getting better and better."

"If you have someone taking care of it, it can be quite easy to manage the solution. Otherwise, if you don't look after it and take care of it day-to-day, then it will become more complex to run."

"It does a good job of establishing trust for every access request. We have had a little bit of a challenge with profiling, but we are probably about 80% there."

"The compliance and posture don't always work. They should make it more stable. With each upgrade, we lose some functionality. We have to wait for another upgrade."

"I'm working from China currently and the only real issue is that, within the country, there's some concern around Cisco and its ability to offer the solution for the long term. As the United States has banned the Huawei version in their country, we feel there may be retaliation in ours and Cisco will get banned as a countermeasure from the government. The future of Cisco in China is in question. Our local partners are worried about the situation."

"I would rate this solution a 7.5 out of ten. To make it a ten they should have more people on tech support. They need to invest more in the product. It's a good product. They should just work on tech support. More support for the customer. It's not that easy to get somebody to understand this product. I have had some issues with tech before for the solution. One of them brought the solution down due to some of his activity. They need to hugely invest in their tech support."

More Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) cons

"Technical support in Pakistan can be improved."

"There are scalability issues. This product does not scale very well. It is not a good product for load balancing / active–active architecture."

"If you use the appliance version then it won't handle a huge database volume."

"This product is missing a lot of features which other competitors are providing. One of the key features that are missing right now is risk scoring. Additionally, there is not much scope for customization - everything is hard-coded and predefined, so it does not allow the developers to make many modifications."

"Every connector that you have in the product needs to be custom-built, so there are not a lot of standard connectors available in the product, because of which there are a lot of hidden consultancy costs."

"RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle could improve out-of-the-box customization."

"The user interface and workflow need improvement, and more connectors would help."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am not aware of the current price for Cisco ISE, but considering it is a Cisco product, it is likely to be quite high."

"Its licensing could be improved. It used to be perpetual, but now they are moving away from that."

"If you go directly with Cisco for the implementation it's very, very expensive."

"The price is okay."

"I don't know too much about the actual pricing on it. The licensing part is pretty straightforward. It's a lot more simple than some of the other Cisco licensing models. In that aspect, it's great."

"The Essentials licensing is reasonable, but I would like the Premier version to be perpetual instead of a subscription."

"Standard licensing gives backup access and very few features, and then there's VM licensing - each VM we use needs to be licensed."

"The pricing is good. The last time we purchased four new appliances the price was doable for any organization of our size."

More Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) pricing and cost advice

"Pricing varies based on user count/number of modules you need."

"I rate the product's price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."

"We are using the cloud platform, but we don't find it compatible to be served as a multi-tenant platform. This is a large drawback. It becomes expensive because it is then an all-dedicated solution. You have to have a separate tenant for each client, which increases the cost. The overall unit pricing can be less expensive than how it is right now."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Financial Services Firm

13%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Computer Software Company

Media Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	44
Midsize Enterprise	32
Large Enterprise	91

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	6

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Aruba Clearpass or Cisco ISE?

Aruba ClearPass is a Network Access Control tool that gives secure network access to multiple device types. You can adapt the policies to VPN access, wired, or wireless access. You can securely ...

See all answers

What are the main differences between Cisco ISE and Forescout Platform?

OK, so Cisco ISE uses 802.1X to secure switchports against unauthorized access. The drawback of this is that ISE cannot secure the port if a device does not support 802.1x. Cameras, badge readers, ...

See all answers

How does Cisco ISE compare with Fortinet FortiNAC?

Cisco ISE uses AI endpoint analytics to identify new devices based on their behavior. It will also notify you if someone plugs in with a device that is not allowed and will block it. The user exper...

See all answers

What needs improvement with RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle?

There is room for improvement with RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle. As the size becomes larger, the collections and unifications of the IDs process become quite slow, which can be improved fu...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle?

We provide RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle as a service, mainly to oversee the digital identity lifecycle, from the initiation to the off-boarding at the end of that digital identity. Our cli...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle?

Overall, I would rate RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle at an eight out of ten.

See all answers

Comparisons

Aruba ClearPass vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Compared 23% of the time

Fortinet FortiNAC vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Compared 20% of the time

Forescout Platform vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Compared 8% of the time

CyberArk Privileged Access Manager vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Compared 4% of the time

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator vs Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

Compared 3% of the time

More Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) Competitors

SailPoint Identity Security Cloud vs RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle

Compared 56% of the time

One Identity Manager vs RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle

Compared 20% of the time

Saviynt vs RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle

Compared 12% of the time

Fortinet FortiAuthenticator vs RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle

Compared 6% of the time

More RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

December 2025

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) report

Download Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) product report

Buyer's Guide

RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle

December 2025

RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle report

Download RSA Identity Governance and Lifecycle product report

Also Known As

Cisco ISE

SecurID

Overview

Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) offers comprehensive network access control and visibility, supporting features like 802.1X authentication, profiling, and posturing. It integrates with Microsoft and other Cisco products, facilitating robust security policies across distributed networks.

Cisco Identity Services Engine is a key player in network access control, offering centralized management and a user-friendly interface. It supports zero trust principles and provides strong authentication for wired and wireless networks. ISE's capabilities include granular security policies, enhanced device posturing, and seamless integration, bolstering security infrastructure. Users benefit from its dual authentication through EAP, simplifying access management across networks.

What are the key features of Cisco ISE?

802.1X Authentication: Supports network security for authorized device access.
Profiling: Identifies devices for accurate policy enforcement.
Posturing: Evaluates device compliance for access decisions.
TACACS: Streamlines network device authentication and authorization.
Guest Access: Provides secure access to visitors.
Microsoft Compatibility: Seamlessly integrates with Microsoft environments.

What benefits and ROI should be considered?

Security Enhancement: Offers strong network security policies.
Operational Efficiency: Centralized management improves operational aspects.
Improved Compliance: Ensures adherence to industry standards.
Scalability: Supports growing network demands effectively.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and education, Cisco ISE is pivotal for securing wired and wireless networks, implementing BYOD policies, and managing user access. Organizations leverage ISE for effective authentication and authorization, while maintaining compliance with industry security standards.

Cisco

RSA SecurID provides world-leading two-factor authentication, protecting 25,000 organizations and 55 million users. RSA SecurID extends security to bring your own device (BYOD), cloud, and mobile as well as traditional virtual private network (VPN) and web portals. RSA SecurID solutions comprise three primary components: authenticator, platform, and agents.

RSA

Sample Customers

Aegean Motorway, BC Hydro, Beachbody, Bucks County Intermediate Unit , Cisco IT, Derby City Council, Global Banking Customer, Gobierno de Castilla-La Mancha, Houston Methodist, Linz AG, London Hydro, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Molina Healthcare, MST Systems, New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Reykjavik University, Wildau University

NTT Com Asia, Virgin Blue, Bank of Uganda, EMEA Telecommunications Company, LAit (Lazio Innovazione Tecnologica), NyNet, OTP Bank, Red Bull Racing, Rupert House School, Signify, UK Local Authority, Bancolombia, Banco Popular de Puerto Rico (BPPR), TIVIT, Array Services, International Computerware, KPMG LLP, Moffitt Cancer Center

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December 2025

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